Women at Tech Have Things to Say

Beyond the Glass Ceiling is a new publication where writers can examine gender balance
issues.

“We had a lot of people interested, but most of them wanted to write anonymously.
They thought it was too much of a risk.”

Megan Walsh, one of the student editors of Beyond the Glass Ceiling, talks about attempts to establish a base of writers last year as the publication
was being launched. If you wonder why we need a feminist publication on campus, for
Walsh, the request for anonymity answers it.

“That alone tells me we need to do this.”

Beyond the Glass Ceiling is the successor to the former TechnoBabe Times, a publication largely housed in the humanities department a decade ago. Graduate
student Katie Snyder wanted to revive the tradition, with encouragement from faculty,
leading to the new publication.

Two issues have been published to date, with much more work planned for this fall.
“We want to do at least one a month,” Walsh says. “We’d like them all to be themed,
so one could be about technology, another business. There are a lot of opportunities.”

Katie Snyder, a PhD candidate in Rhetoric and Technical Communication, helped get
the publication up and running. “We started this because we wanted to provide a forum
for feminist discussion on campus,” she says.

On a campus where there are still whispered jokes about MRS degrees and the gender
imbalance in certain programs (though Tech can rightly boast about progress in addressing
this imbalance), Snyder sees the opportunity for Beyond the Glass Ceiling to make a difference.

“Tech continues to evolve toward gender balance, but we have a long way to go,” she
says. We all know there are still far fewer women on campus than men—it's definitely
an issue that's on the minds of many students. For some students it's not a big deal,
or it's a standing joke; for others, it's a serious problem. We thought the newspaper
would be a good way to bring the issue out into the open: discuss it, work toward
resolving it.”

What can a small publication do? The hope is, like the women’s initiatives of the
Admissions Office, to keep pushing towards balance, no matter how long it takes. “Our
hope is that the newspaper can facilitate some positive change on campus,” Snyder
says. “We'd like to support students who feel alone or left out, offer a venue for
feature writing from diverse perspectives, provide a forum for debate. We're hoping
to create a community that invites greater diversity, fostering greater creativity
and innovation. Everyone benefits, really.”

For Walsh, the opportunities to move beyond just a publication seem tantalizing. “We’re
hoping to bring Andrea Gibson up here for a performance,” she says. “It would be nice
to expand to movie screenings, workshops and the like. Anything to keep the discussion
going. The publication is just part of the organization.”

Snyder sees that there’s a lot of work to be done, but she’s undaunted. “It's idealistic,
sure. But worth pursuing.”

Michigan Technological University is a public research university, home to more than
7,000 students from 60 countries around the world. Founded in 1885, the University
offers more than 120 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in science and technology,
engineering, forestry, business and economics, health professions, humanities, mathematics,
and social sciences. Our beautiful campus in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula overlooks
the Keweenaw Waterway and is just a few miles from Lake Superior.